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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946317">Static</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/penguistifical/pseuds/penguistifical'>penguistifical</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Just something soft really, M/M, Non-Sexual Kink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:02:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,438</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946317</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/penguistifical/pseuds/penguistifical</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter considers. “I just want to be with someone and be alone at the same time, is the best way I can put it.”</p><p>“You want to be away from your own thoughts, out of your head for a bit.” Elias supplies.</p><p>“I suppose you’re about to say I could let <em>you</em> in my mind instead.”</p><p>“Why not?” Elias grins. “It’s not as if you’re using it.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Static</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is really indulgent but like, I wrote it for me so of course it is</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>One of the nicest aspects about a relationship with a mind-reader <em> should </em> be that Peter doesn’t actually have to say aloud the more embarrassing things he’d like to communicate. But, Elias is his partner, and Elias frequently takes delight in making him squirm.<br/>
<br/>
Three minutes ago Peter had entered Elias’s office presumably to talk shop. Instead, he'd somehow promptly found himself waist deep in a pitfall conversation about some of his intimate speculations. </p><p>“I’m just not sure I understand what you’re saying you’d like,” Elias drawls, even though he’d been the one to start the damn conversation. He’s choosing to now play that his abilities go in and out of service like an old radio.<br/>
<br/>
“Then maybe you should have been listening,” Peter replies. “Why did you actually want to see me? It can’t have been to talk about my...more private imaginings.”</p><p>“Well, no, but finding out you’ve been harboring a fantasy is, I must confess, far more interesting than showing you some applicant’s paperwork. And, Peter, with regards to your 'imaginings,' as it were: you're Lonely, they're all private.” Elias steeples his fingers as if in deep contemplation. “So, you don’t want to have to make any decisions?” he offers.</p><p>“I suppose,” Peter considers, and nods.<br/>
<br/>
“It doesn’t seem like you’d like to be punished,” Elias continues, to another nod. “But it doesn’t quite seem like you’d like to be praised, either. What, then, do you want?”<br/>
<br/>
“Some touching is fine,” Peter begins vaguely. Elias makes an encouraging ‘go on’ motion, but Peter trails off. </p><p>“You’d like to leave yourself in the hands of another person.” Elias says for him, either taking pity or unable to resist talking. Peter suspects the second. “The situation would be one person and one…toy.”</p><p>“I don’t think I used that word,” Peter demurs.</p><p>“You didn’t use many words at all, my dear.” It’s something of a poisonous term of endearment between them, and in this moment Peter curls his lip at being both a ‘dear’ and a ‘my.’</p><p>Elias leans back casually at his desk. “Look, if you’d like this to happen, you can talk to me about what you want. If not, you know where the door is -not that you ever use it.”</p><p>“Just pull it out of me, you secret stealing prick.” Peter throws back at Elias, who merely waits.</p><p>Eventually Peter caves because he does, after all, want to see what happens if he confesses. “I don’t want to be asked questions, or spoken to with the expectation that I’ll say anything back. I’ll listen if you tell me something, but I don’t want to be praised for listening.” Peter meets Elias’s intent gaze. “I just want to be with someone and be alone at the same time, is the best way I can put it.”<br/>
<br/>
Peter is prepared for the other man to mock him, to say he’s predictable, but Elias only looks thoughtful.</p><p>“You’ll listen if ‘I’ tell you something?” he asks.<br/>
<br/>
“Yes,” says Peter, bemused. “Who else would I be doing this with?” He means to imply that Elias is something of an idiot for even asking, but the quick gleam in Elias’s eyes is unmistakably pleased and possessive.</p><p>“You don’t want to be asked questions…” Elias says slowly, carefully letting the statement hang.</p><p>Peter smiles wryly, despite himself. “I don’t mean your compulsions, I just mean that I don’t want to talk, or even listen, really.”<br/>
<br/>
“You want to be away from your own thoughts, out of your head for a bit.” Elias supplies.</p><p>“I suppose you’re about to say I could let you in my mind instead.”</p><p>“Why not?” Elias grins. “It’s not as if you’re using it.” </p><p>Peter sneers, but he’s back on familiar ground, comfortable in the insult that he knows is a tease.<br/>
<br/>
“Is that enough?” Peter complains. “Is this interrogation over?”</p><p>“Yes, I think I have a clear enough idea,” Elias says. “And this conversation is over whenever you’d like to be.”</p><p>Peter hesitates. Going over his fantasy in such a way, what he wants and doesn’t want, seems entirely one-sided. “What part of what I just said is anything you’d like?”</p><p>“Ah, Peter," Elias laughs, genuinely entertained. "You’re a little too closely tied to your Entity sometimes, it seems.”</p><p>Peter frowns. “And you aren’t?”<br/>
<br/>
“I serve, I serve,” Elias replies, with a mocking lift of an eyebrow. Peter realizes he’s essentially been pouring out his secrets for the past ten minutes.</p><p>“Do you ever get tired of people playing into your hands?” Peter asks, sighing at himself.</p><p>“Oh, never.” Elias says easily, but his face softens. “If you’re wondering what I’ll get out of it, because you can’t envision the other side of your scenario, let me enlighten you. I’ll see you on your knees for me, and th-”</p><p>“It wouldn’t be <em> for </em> you,” Peter interrupts.</p><p>“No, the focus wouldn’t be that you’re giving something to me, there won’t be a back and forth between us. I understand. But: I will see you kneel, it will be at <em> my </em> feet, you’ll take what I give you and ask with your body for more, which I may or may not give. And, I assure you, I’ll enjoy that immensely.”</p><p>Peter swallows.</p><p>“Anyway,” Elias finishes, “I think it would be quite nice, is what I’m saying. You think things over and let me know what you’d like to do.”</p><p>“I <em> have </em> been thinking about it.”</p><p>“No, you’ve been fantasizing.” Elias counters. Peter feels Elias’s deft presence briefly in his mind, an affectionate caress of his thoughts to make sure that he’s not upset or unsettled.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s just a little bit of fun, Peter, when all’s said and done. Nothing’s at stake here besides an enjoyable evening of a particular variety. There are many other ways to have a pleasant night.”</p><p>Elias turns the conversation to a new applicant seeking a position at the Institute. The job seeker doesn't meet any of Elias's qualifications, but, in a year, with the right nurturing, he’ll have become ripe prey for the Lonely.</p><p>Elias had rejected his application, but kept his information to offer to Peter.</p><p>“Just remind me in a year,” Peter says carelessly, and is surprised when Elias beams at him. He realizes he’s voiced and acknowledged a rather strange sort of commitment: that whatever they have between them will still exist in a year.</p><p>As slippery as the Beholder tends to be, Peter knows where he stands with Elias. The man does what he thinks will benefit himself. Sometimes this means the Eye benefits as well, and sometimes Elias just indulges. Peter's partnership with Elias is jagged but enjoyable, and neither of them foresee that changing in the near future.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Knowing this makes the whole situation somehow less weighty. Peter considers Elias’s offer. He texts him after a few days and they discuss specifics, such as how either of them might call a halt to things.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>They meet again in Elias’s office a week later.<br/>
<br/>
Peter’s not exactly pleased with their rendezvous point. It’s not as if, given his particular set of powers, meeting anywhere need be a problem. But now, when they leave, they’ll be leaving <em> together</em>, and Peter instinctively balks at that suggestion of public casual intimacy.<br/>
<br/>
“Where did you have in mind?” Peter asks, sourly.</p><p>Elias regards him somewhat quizzically. “Here, of course.” He tugs lightly on the door to his office, showing Peter that it’s locked. “I want you in my territory for this, I think. I thought it might...assist in how you feel with the evening.”<br/>
<br/>
Much mollified, Peter watches Elias collect the pillows from his office couch and toss them to the floor by his desk.</p><p>“I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t want me to suck you off in the Panopticon,” Peter says, relaxing.<br/>
<br/>
“Vulgar,” Elias says appreciatively. “But, no.” He walks from the door back to Peter, and gently traces a hand down his face. “You’re one of the only living people who could make such a joke, you realize. There have been precious few who knew about my Panopticon.” It is odd sometimes, to realize the balance of confidences between them. “Still, two can keep a secret if one is...Lonely.” Elias pats Peter’s face and withdraws. “So.”<br/>
<br/>
Though it’s the end of the day, the beholder is still in the suit that’s his typical Institute wear. Elias reaches for Peter’s hands and brings them to the front of his jacket, raising them to the top button. It seems fairly obvious what Elias would like, but Peter stands unmoving, waiting. There’s a pleased anticipatory heat beginning to curl in his stomach. Standing this close to Elias, it’s easy to breathe in the scent of him: ink, and dust, and today, for some reason, pine needles.</p><p>“Go on,” Elias eventually says, and Peter slowly undoes the top button. Elias keeps his hands loosely on top of Peter’s, slowly running his fingers back and forth over Peter’s knuckles, and working his thumbs into Peter’s palms in a sort of massage. </p><p>“Continue. The other two, please.” Elias says, when the top of his suit jacket is opened. Peter lowers his hands to the other button while Elias keeps his warm grip on Peter’s.<br/>
<br/>
He can feel the faint touch of Elias in his mind, perusing, flipping over his current thoughts like stones to see what’s underneath. After a moment, the avatar of the Eye withdraws, satisfied, with a quick squeeze to Peter’s hands.</p><p>Elias shrugs off his jacket and folds it into a neat square, placing it on the ground next to his desk and the pillows.</p><p>Peter realizes he’s just standing and watching, ready to be told what to do next. The soft sound when he shifts back and forth is unpleasantly grating in the silence. Elias straightens from arranging the jacket over the floor, and beckons.</p><p>“Come here,” he calls, though Peter is only a foot away from the desk.</p><p>He guides Peter into the area he’s made next to the desk chair, and coaxes him to kneel on the jacket he’s formed into a pad. </p><p>“Lift your head,” Elias tells him, and shows him, surprisingly enough, a pair of headphones. They look, as do most of Elias’s possessions, unnecessarily expensive, but also futuristic, incongruous in an office with tape recorders.</p><p>Elias places the headphones over Peter’s ears and adjusts them so that the plush fabric around the speakers is comfortably pressed against him. Peter thinks for a second that he’s hearing ocean waves before the sound resolves into static. It’s just a buzz, a nothingness that’s a comforting drone. The headphones aren’t so noisy that Peter can’t still hear when the other man tells him “Shh, just listen,” but they are just loud enough to cover up the noises of his clothes when he moves, his breathing, his own heartbeat. It’s wonderful.</p><p>Elias cinches the band of the headphones a little tighter, and Peter leans into his hand. Elias indulges that for a moment before moving to arrange Peter, placing his arms on the pillows and propping him up slightly against the chair.<br/>
<br/>
Peter somewhat dreamily lets himself be moved however Elias wants to position him, arranged as easily as the jacket had been draped over the floor.</p><p>“I do like seeing you like this,” Elias tells Peter, just audible above the static. “So relaxed, so delightfully pliant.”</p><p>“So helpless?” Peter offers, strange and muted to his own ears.</p><p>“I was going to say malleable, but, yes, helpless.” Elias agrees. “I do like seeing you helpless, if I can control the circumstances.”</p><p>Having apparently positioned Peter to his satisfaction, Elias hesitates before withdrawing.</p><p>“Close your eyes,” he murmurs to Peter, next to the headphones.</p><p>Peter obeys, and feels Elias’s warm breath against his own lips as the beholder presses his forehead against Peter’s. Elias takes his chin in hand and tilts his face slightly so that he can press a line of barely-there kisses just underneath Peter’s eyes. And then, with exquisite care, a quick kiss on each of Peter's closed eyelids. It’s a particular gesture of affection from Elias, something the beholder does when he’s feeling especially pleased or sentimental. Peter sighs, and can’t hear himself, and it’s perfect.<br/>
<br/>
“Open them if you’d like,” Elias says afterwards. “Until I say otherwise.” </p><p>Peter opens his eyes and watches Elias sit down at his desk. He stays where Elias has posed him, until the other man tugs him down to rest his head in Elias’s lap, moving the headphones up slightly so that they don't dig into Peter's face.<br/>
<br/>
It’s easy to focus only on the warm thigh under his cheek and Elias’s hand stroking through his hair, pausing occasionally to scratch lightly against the back of his head. Nothing is expected of him except to sit and be moved however Elias pleases.</p><p>When Peter feels a finger against his lips he opens his mouth automatically, only for Elias to withdraw back to his hair and begin petting him again.</p><p>If Elias’s touch feels suspiciously like care, it also feels pleasant, and Peter gazes forward at nothing, letting Elias do as he likes.<br/>
<br/>
He feels Elias’s hand at his mouth again a minute later, and this time remains still, letting Elias gently run a finger back and forth over his lower lip. When Elias does gently push his mouth open, Peter remains lax, allowing Elias to slowly move his fingers in and out of Peter’s mouth, rubbing them lightly over Peter’s tongue.</p><p>He’s playing, Peter thinks, remembering Elias’s words from before, as if Peter is just a toy.<br/>
<br/>
Then the fingers are slowly removed, and Peter feels a handkerchief being run underneath his mouth. Presumably Elias uses it to clean his hand as well, because his touch is dry when he soothes his hands over Peter’s face.</p><p>Between the pleasant murmur of static in his ears and Elias’s hands moving through his hair, Peter’s whole body feels like it’s buzzing slightly with wonderful detachment. He presses his head a little more deeply into Elias’s lap, and feels a vibration underneath him that must be Elias chuckling. There's a sensation in his mind that’s Elias carding through his thoughts just as he’s carding through his hair, making sure that Peter’s fine to continue.<br/>
<br/>
Peter wonders, briefly, about how pleased Elias had looked when Peter had said he couldn't imagine doing this with anyone else.<br/>
<br/>
But, that's something to consider later.<br/>
<br/>
For now, Elias turns up the volume and Peter allows himself to drown in the static, thinking only of fog and of the warm hand running through his hair.  <br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>maybe softer than these two deserve, but, here we are</p><p>think I ended similarly before....also seem to write a lot with somebody's head on somebody else's lap but what can I say, it's just such a nice way to cuddle somebody</p><p>thank you everybody who leaves kudos and comments, you are all really great and I appreciate it a lot</p></blockquote></div></div>
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